How to open a successful cafe-dream, but also have a sense of direction

Cafes have replaced fast food restaurants as the first choice for parties or killing time. In the annual entrepreneurial exhibition, cafes are always voted as the top ten start-up industries, so it can be seen that opening a cafe is fatally attractive to many entrepreneurs. How wonderful it is to be able to smell coffee, chat with guests and make money every day!

Although like to drink coffee is the basic condition to become a cafe owner, but after all, drinking coffee and opening a coffee shop are two different things. Drinking coffee is romantic, but opening a coffee shop is realistic.

Coffee shop lesson 1: positioning-dreaming, but also a sense of direction

Determining the positioning of a coffee shop is the first step in opening a successful coffee shop.

For example, open luxury cafes, take-out cafes or inner-seated cafes? Do you only sell coffee in the shop, or "coffee + pastry" or "coffee + pastry + light meal"? In addition, is it a single store or a compound cafe allied with other industries (for example, in conjunction with bookstores)? All this has to be thought out from the very beginning.

The management orientation of the coffee shop determines the capital, personnel, menu, location, and even the design and decoration of the store; we must first determine the management direction, and then plan other details. But many shop owners are just the opposite. they often decide on the decoration and location before thinking about what type of cafe to open. For example, "I really want to open a coffee shop full of Provence style," focusing on how to decorate Provence style, which is the most common and fatal mistake for coffee shop owners.

The second lesson of coffee shop: financial planning-- opening a shop and making a good abacus.

The software and hardware required for a cafe are as follows: 1. Menu (menu, including coffee, pastries and light meals) 2. Money-generating equipment (coffee maker, oven, microwave oven, gas stove, smoothie machine, refrigerator, freezer, etc.) 3. Hardware equipment (air conditioning, lighting, etc.) 4. Vessel 5. Design and decoration (bar design, cafe style and tone, table and chair furniture, etc.)

Of these five elements, the menu is the most basic, which will determine which money-generating equipment and hardware equipment need to be purchased, and will also affect the bar design. If you only want to open a coffee + pastry cafe at first, the bar design is relatively simple, but if you find that this alone is unable to maintain operation, and when you want to add smoothie products, you will find that the bar may not have room for a smoothie machine; if you want to add more light meals and do not plan the kitchen at the beginning, the problem will be even bigger, and even need to be redecorated, which is another large expense. Therefore, at the beginning of starting a business, it is necessary to think clearly about the selling program of the cafe. The decoration budget is most likely to get out of control.

In terms of financial planning for cafes, the following expenses must be included:

1. Money-generating equipment

two。 Hardware equipment

3. Utensils

4. Design and decoration

5. Rent (first month's rent + 3 months' deposit = 4 months' rent)

6. Raw material

7. Personnel expenses (eg salaries of timers)

8. Miscellaneous expenses (water and electricity expenses)

9. Can maintain the reserve of the coffee shop in deficit for at least 5 months [(rent + raw materials + personnel expenses + miscellaneous expenses) x 5]

It is suggested that the budgets of wealth-generating equipment, hardware equipment and utensils are immovable, and the only thing that can change is the cost of design and decoration; as for rent, it involves the choice of location, which is quite variable.

"Why do we keep warning entrepreneurs not to start with design and decoration when opening a store? Because experience tells us that when many entrepreneurs have NT $1 million in cash, the first thing to do is to find a design and decoration company. At that time, they have plenty of money, and in order to build their dream cafe, the decoration budget is often constantly increased. Obviously, only 200000 of the budget is needed, and often by the time it is finished, it has already spent 500000. "the rest of the money is used to buy money and hardware equipment, and after deducting the rent and deposit paid to the landlord for four months, there is little left. As long as there is something wrong, the cafe is very likely to be unsustainable and either close or give way.

Every penny is spent on the knife edge.

Some people are willing to buy a 500 yuan chair to decorate the cafe, but others buy a 50 yuan second-hand chair with a chair cover, the effect is just as good.

Coffee equipment and bar are the core of the whole cafe. "in fact, a good two-hole or three-hole Italian coffee machine, whose price ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of yuan, is enough to handle guests in 150 square cafes. "

The after-sales service of the coffee machine should not be ignored. his experience is that if the Italian coffee machine breaks down and the supplier cannot come and repair the machine within four hours, the coffee machine is useless, "because you don't have to do business all day!"

Upholstery design should be flexible.

In fact, the flexibility of the design and decoration is very large, and the investment should not be too large. As for the pure take-out cafe, the decoration is even simpler, as long as the bar is well designed, the rest can hardly spend any money.

Coffee shop lesson 3: if the professional technology is not in place, everything is out of the question.

Since it is a coffee shop, the quality of coffee beans and the technology of brewing coffee are the key to determining the return rate of customers. Chinese people like the new and hate the old quickly, and the decoration of a store may be out of date in three years' time. If you only want to win with the decoration atmosphere, the media effect may bring a crowd at first, but after the fever goes down, what can a bad cafe rely on?

It is suggested that since we are willing to open a coffee shop, it is best for the entrepreneur to take charge of the bar at the initial stage of opening the shop, and it is sufficient to hire 2 or 3 full-time or part-time students in the outfield to cope with the daily operation of the cafe, which can not only save personnel costs, but also make coffee by hand. it can also avoid the situation of different coffee quality caused by the lack of manpower in case the bar staff leaves.

What do you know about the characteristics of coffee beans?

Before opening a shop, many people do not even know how to make coffee. Before opening a shop, they must spend more time tasting coffee beans from other places. In addition to training their own sense of taste, they can also study the quality and taste of different coffee beans and find out which coffee beans they like. Or it takes time to develop experience in baking beans yourself.

There are many importers and traders of coffee beans, you might as well surf the Internet or consult people in the industry, and bean merchants or coffee machine suppliers all provide relevant courses, so it is not difficult to understand coffee beans.

In addition, it is usually necessary to read more coffee books, and it is best to listen to related activities, because the threshold of cafes is not high and the competition is increasingly fierce. The only way is to make the quality of coffee.

Coffee shop lesson 4: location-you don't have to believe in prime locations

Many people believe that the key to success in opening a store is "location,location,location". As long as you open a shop in a prime location, it is a safe bet. In fact, this sentence is only half true.

Usually we distinguish commercial areas by Class A, Class B and Class C. for prime lots of Class A, the rent is either frighteningly high, or there is no market, which is why shops in prime locations usually sell high unit price products. In many gold stores in the first-tier war zone, the rent is at least tens of thousands of yuan a month. how many cups a day do you have to sell to make the rent even? This does not include personnel costs and equipment depreciation. In fact, as long as it is managed properly, grade B and C lots can also have the spring of cafes. A short distance away, the rent is very different.

Every penny of the entrepreneur must be spent on the knife edge, and the rent of the store on the main road costs tens of thousands of yuan a month, but if it is in an alley only more than ten meters from the road, customers will not mind taking a few more steps, and the rent may be quite different.

The area can be divided into department store, office area, business district, cultural and educational district, entertainment area, residential area, traffic transfer area, etc., observe the daily activities and the flow of people in the area, and analyze the success rate of running cafes in the area.

Each location has a different way of work and rest, and the crowds gather at different times. If the cafe is in the office area, the noon from Monday to Friday is the most important business time, and you can take advantage of Sunday rest; on the other hand, if you open a shop in the entertainment area or shopping area, the weekend break is obviously against money.

However, the "crowd" is not necessarily equal to the "money tide". It is recommended that entrepreneurs spend at least a week observing the nature of the local crowd and consumption patterns when choosing a location. Centering on the scheduled location of the store, investigate how many competitors (including chain or single-store cafes, fast food restaurants, and bubbly black tea shops) are within 500 meters around, and record the number of competitors who enter the store every day and their estimated turnover. At the same time, evaluate how much cake you can share or make bigger if you enter the war.

Coffee shop lesson 5: cost control-how much does a cup of coffee cost?

Of course, you can't lose money when opening a shop. But many people only know how much a cup of coffee costs, but do not know how much a cup of coffee costs.

It usually takes 15 to 20 grams of beans to make a cup of coffee, and 25 to 30 cups of coffee to make a pound of coffee. The cost of cream (or milk) and sugar for a cup of coffee is about 1 yuan, as well as paper cups, tissue paper, mixing sticks and other materials. In this way, the raw material cost of a cup of coffee is roughly between 2 yuan and 4 yuan. In addition, don't forget to add the cost of rent, water, electricity, personnel and equipment depreciation, plus a certain percentage of the profit is the price of a cup of coffee.

The shopkeeper does not know how to set the price, and he will follow suit to see how much the competitor orders. But this kind of laziness is very dangerous. later, when we find that we cannot make ends meet and dare not raise prices, we have no choice but to switch to cheaper coffee beans, and the vicious circle begins. "this is the beginning of preparing to close down!"

Coffee shop lesson 6: customer training-- A long stream of water to build a reputation

Opening a coffee shop is like chasing a girlfriend. It takes time to brew. A few years ago, it was quite profitable to open a coffee shop, but with the strong involvement of competitors and coffee chains, it became more and more difficult to open a dream cafe with its own style. As long as they are conscientious coffee suppliers, they will warn entrepreneurs not to get rich by opening a coffee shop overnight. "

Opening a cafe is a long-running business, usually in the stage of burning money in the first three months, and many people hope to make a name for themselves through various marketing and advertising activities before opening the shop. "but don't be full on the first day of the opening!" Zhou Wenpei said very seriously. His reason is that the movement line and customer service process of coffee brewing may not be familiar with at the beginning of the opening, and some of them are not even good at using coffee machines. The more people come, the more customers complain.

"as long as you have two or three kittens on the first day, you can gradually familiarize yourself with various skills and work flow, and as long as one of them is not a dumb cat, you will gradually have a reputation." since the estimated flow of people at the beginning will not be too high, it is necessary to rely on lower operating costs (of which lower rent is the most important) in exchange for time to train customers.

Ask yourself three questions

To open a coffee shop, you can not only realize your entrepreneurial dream, but also make some like-minded friends. However, be sure to ask yourself three questions: is the rent in the store reasonable? Is the capital for starting a business mostly self-owned? Is it your lifelong interest to open a coffee shop? If the answer to all three questions is "Yes!" Then owning your own Fantasy Cafe will no longer be a distant dream.